Call The Midwife cast reunite to film ninth series

Helen George, Miriam Margolyes and Jenny Agutter have reunited with their Call The Midwife co-stars to commence filming on the next series.

The BBC One period drama will be back for a Christmas special this year, and there will be a ninth series which will air in 2020.

The festive episode has already completed filming, and the cast are back together again to film the new series.

The Christmas special sees the team, led by Mother Mildred (Margolyes), take their work to the Outer Hebrides, where they help the residents on the remote Scottish islands who are in desperate need for nurses and midwives.

The team are exposed to the elements and have barely any access to water and electricity to help their patients, before returning to their home in Poplar in time for Christmas.

The new series will then open with the funeral of Winston Churchill in January 1965, and sees Nonnatus House entering a bold, innovative era.

However, as more and more tower blocks spring up in the East End of London, the pressures become more complex as society prospers.

The midwives and medics are faced with unexpected challenges as the population grows and, alongside the joy of birth, they must also face cases including drug abuse, cancer, tuberculosis and fistula.

Margoyles, who joined the programme in series eight, is back alongside familiar Call The Midwife stars Agutter, George, Linda Bassett, Judy Parfitt, Laura Main, Jennifer Kirby, Leonie Elliott and Stephen McGann, among others.

Dame Pippa Harris, executive producer, said: “After an exciting journey to the Outer Hebrides for this year’s Christmas special, it’s wonderful to be back in Poplar watching the cast and crew craft another powerful series, based on Heidi Thomas’s magnificent scripts.

“As we move into the mid-1960s the Nonnatus team face challenging new medical and social changes, with their customary winning combination of steely determination, empathy and love.”

The show’s creator, writer and executive producer Heidi Thomas said: “After a magical Christmas experience in the Hebrides featuring wild seas, stormy skies and some very disobedient sheep, we return to the harsher reality of city life in 1965.

“Society is changing fast and in series nine we will see Nonnatus House shaken to its foundations.”

Call The Midwife has already been commissioned for an additional two series, keeping it on screens until 2022.